Free mobile data in exchange for advertising arrive in Spain

Orange will soon bring to Spain the business of sponsored data, consisting of allowing free navigation to its customers when they punch in their smartphones their advertising campaigns or use their applications. The sponsored data is a new commercial strategy that has started strongly in the United States where it is used by both AT & T, Verizon and T-Mobile, but has not yet been released in Europe.

The subsidiary of the French operator wants Spain to be a pioneer in this new business and will begin the technical and network tests to implement this service of sponsored data. To do so, it has reached an agreement with the Internet sales platform Privalia, and with Datami, a US company specialized in digital marketing that already provides this service to 6 million users of several operators in twelve countries, particularly in Latin America, Informed the newspaper in sources familiar with the agreement.

Through the sponsored data, the commercial brands make their advertising or promotional content through their web or through their own app allowing users to browse free on those pages without spending the megas of their data bonuses. The sponsored companies pay the operator for these data and, in some cases, some amount in exchange for introducing the service, without these amounts being entered in the user’s invoice. This will know at all times that the content is sponsored by a third party and that when you access a message will notify you that it is a sponsored content and therefore the traffic will be paid by the sponsor.

Brands use this mega gift for various marketing purposes, from the widespread use of apps , viewing audiovisual content like advertisements or movie trailers or browsing mobile shopping sites for a while.

A unique case of the use of sponsored data that was very successful was that used by the Brazilian bank Bradesco. The entity was overwhelmed by the number of customers who queued long in the branches to make any kind of process. And he decided to launch a campaign ( Free Access Bradesco Celular ) that allowed customers to access their bank accounts from their smartphones without paying for the data, managing to double in two years the number of customers of his app for the mobile.

Precisely in Brazil, Telefónica will start this business through its subsidiary Vivo, with brands such as Privalia, Mercado Libre or Netshoes. Although the Spanish multinational will take the data sponsored to other Latin American countries like Mexico, it does not intend to export them to Spain.

Orange has chosen Spain because its Spanish subsidiary is by far the most profitable in the group and the second market after France. The operator, along with its partners Privalia and Datami, will conduct a pilot test of this new business experience at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) held in late February in Barcelona. Subsequently, it will conduct pilot tests with actual customers prior to commercial exploitation. The experience is framed within the new alternative business lines contained in the French group’s Essentials 2020 growth plan.

The sponsored data business is already commercially available in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ghana, Indonesia and Vietnam. And it is undergoing testing in Botswana, France, Germany, Philippines, Peru, Ecuador, Rwanda, India, Arab Emirates and Egypt. Some of the brands that have launched commercial campaigns through this method are Bradesco, Privalia, Mercado Livre, ifood, Netshoes, Samsung, TuGo, Ford, Unilever, Nestlé.

A step beyond the data sponsored are data rewards or data rewards , which consists of rewarding the user with data bonds, who also pays a mark as a marketing action for buying a product of yours, download an app, complete a survey Or others.

Note: This article was originally published in Spanish. Direct translation above.